Patagonia

Henry James

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pubOne.info thank you for your continued support and wish to present you this new edition. The houses were dark in the August night and the perspective of Beacon Street, with its double chain of lamps, was a foreshortened desert. The club on the hill alone, from its semi-cylindrical front, projected a glow upon the dusky vagueness of the Common, and as I passed it I heard in the hot stillness the click of a pair of billiard-balls. As every one was out of town perhaps the servants, in the extravagance of their leisure, were profaning the tables. The heat was insufferable and I thought with joy of the morrow, of the deck of the steamer, the freshening breeze, the sense of getting out to sea. I was even glad of what I had learned in the afternoon at the office of the company - that at the eleventh hour an old ship with a lower standard of speed had been put on in place of the vessel in which I had taken my passage. America was roasting, England might very well be stuffy, and a slow passage (which at that season of the year would probably also be a fine one) was a guarantee of ten or twelve days of fresh air

Informations

• Publié par: Pub One Info
• Date de parution: 23 octobre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782819913405
• Langue: English

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CHAPTER I
The houses were dark in the August night and theperspective of Beacon Street, with its double chain of lamps, was aforeshortened desert. The club on the hill alone, from itssemi-cylindrical front, projected a glow upon the dusky vaguenessof the Common, and as I passed it I heard in the hot stillness theclick of a pair of billiard-balls. As "every one" was out of townperhaps the servants, in the extravagance of their leisure, wereprofaning the tables. The heat was insufferable and I thought withjoy of the morrow, of the deck of the steamer, the fresheningbreeze, the sense of getting out to sea. I was even glad of what Ihad learned in the afternoon at the office of the company - that atthe eleventh hour an old ship with a lower standard of speed hadbeen put on in place of the vessel in which I had taken my passage.America was roasting, England might very well be stuffy, and a slowpassage (which at that season of the year would probably also be afine one) was a guarantee of ten or twelve days of fresh air.
I strolled down the hill without meeting a creature,though I could see through the palings of the Common that thatrecreative expanse was peopled with dim forms. I remembered Mrs.Nettlepoint's house - she lived in those days (they are not sodistant, but there have been changes) on the water-side, a littleway beyond the spot at which the Public Garden terminates; and Ireflected that like myself she would be spending the night inBoston if it were true that, as had been mentioned to me a few daysbefore at Mount Desert, she was to embark on the morrow forLiverpool. I presently saw this appearance confirmed by a lightabove her door and in two or three of her windows, and I determinedto ask for her, having nothing to do till bedtime. I had come outsimply to pass an hour, leaving my hotel to the blaze of its gasand the perspiration of its porters; but it occurred to me that myold friend might very WELL not know of the substitution of thePatagonia for the Scandinavia, so that I should be doing her aservice to prepare her mind. Besides, I could offer to help her, tolook after her in the morning: lone women are grateful for supportin taking ship for far countries.
It came to me indeed as I stood on her door-stepthat as she had a son she might not after all be so lone; yet Iremembered at the same time that Jasper Nettlepoint was not quite ayoung man to lean upon, having - as I at least supposed - a life ofhis own and tastes and habits which had long since diverted himfrom the maternal side. If he did happen just now to be at home mysolicitude would of course seem officious; for in his manywanderings - I believed he had roamed all over the globe - he wouldcertainly have learned how to manage. None the less, in fine, I wasvery glad to show Mrs. Nettlepoint I thought of her. With my longabsence I had lost sight of her; but I had liked her of old, shehad been a good friend to my sisters, and I had in regard to herthat sense which is pleasant to those who in general have goneastray or got detached, the sense that she at least knew all aboutme. I could trust her at any time to tell people I was respectable.Perhaps I was conscious of how little I deserved this indulgencewhen it came over me that I hadn't been near her for ages. Themeasure of that neglect was given by my vagueness of mind aboutJasper. However, I really belonged nowadays to a differentgeneration; I was more the mother's contemporary than theson's.
Mrs. Nettlepoint was at home: I found her in herback drawing-room, where the wide windows opened to the water. Theroom was dusky - it was too hot for lamps - and she sat slowlymoving her fan and looking out on the little arm of the sea whichis so pretty at night, reflecting the lights of Cambridgeport andCharlestown. I supposed she was musing on the loved ones she was toleave behind, her married daughters, her grandchildren; but shestruck a note more specifically Bostonian as she said to me,pointing with her fan to the Back Bay: "I shall see nothing morecharming than that over there, you know!" She made me very welcome,but her son had told her about the Patagonia, for which she wassorry, as this would mean a longer voyage. She was a poor creaturein any boat and mainly confined to her cabin even in weatherextravagantly termed fine - as if any weather could be fine atsea.
"Ah then your son's going with you?" I asked.
"Here he comes, he'll tell you for himself muchbetter than I can pretend to." Jasper Nettlepoint at that momentjoined us, dressed in white flannel and carrying a large fan."Well, my dear, have you decided?" his mother continued with noscant irony. "He hasn't yet made up his mind, and we sail at teno'clock!"
"What does it matter when my things are put up?" theyoung man said. "There's no crowd at this moment; there will becabins to spare. I'm waiting for a telegram - that will settle it.I just walked up to the club to see if it was come - they'll sendit there because they suppose this house unoccupied. Not yet, but Ishall go back in twenty minutes."
"Mercy, how you rush about in this temperature!" thepoor lady exclaimed while I reflected that it was perhaps HISbilliard-balls I had heard ten minutes before. I was sure he wasfond of billiards.
"Rush? not in the least. I take it uncommoneasy."
"Ah I'm bound to say you do!" Mrs. Nettlepointreturned with inconsequence. I guessed at a certain tension betweenthe pair and a want of consideration on the young man's part,arising perhaps from selfishness. His mother was nervous, insuspense, wanting to be at rest as to whether she should have hiscompany on the voyage or be obliged to struggle alone. But as hestood there smiling and slowly moving his fan he struck me somehowas a person on whom this fact wouldn't sit too heavily. He was ofthe type of those whom other people worry about, not of those whoworry about other people. Tall and strong, he had a handsome face,with a round head and close- curling hair; the whites of his eyesand the enamel of his teeth, under his brown moustache, gleamedvaguely in the lights of the Back Bay. I made out that he wassunburnt, as if he lived much in the open air, and that he lookedintelligent but also slightly brutal, though not in a morose way.His brutality, if he had any, was bright and finished. I had totell him who I was, but even then I saw how little he placed me andthat my explanations gave me in his mind no great identity or atany rate no great importance. I foresaw that he would inintercourse make me feel sometimes very young and sometimes veryold, caring himself but little which. He mentioned, as if to showour companion that he might safely be left to his own devices, thathe had once started from London to Bombay at three quarters of anhour's notice.
"Yes, and it must have been pleasant for the peopleyou were with!"
"Oh the people I was with - !" he returned; and histone appeared to signify that such people would always have to comeoff as they could. He asked if there were no cold drinks in thehouse, no lemonade, no iced syrups; in such weather something ofthat sort ought always to be kept going. When his mother remarkedthat surely at the club they WERE kept going he went on: "Oh yes, Ihad various things there; but you know I've walked down the hillsince. One should have something at either end. May I ring andsee?" He rang while Mrs. Nettlepoint observed that with the peoplethey had in the house, an establishment reduced naturally at such amoment to its simplest expression - they were burning upcandle-ends and there were no luxuries - she wouldn't answer forthe service. The matter ended in her leaving the room in quest ofcordials with the female domestic who had arrived in response tothe bell and in whom Jasper's appeal aroused no visibleintelligence.
She remained away some time and I talked with herson, who was sociable but desultory and kept moving over the place,always with his fan, as if he were properly impatient. Sometimes heseated himself an instant on the window-sill, and then I made himout in fact thoroughly good-looking - a fine brown clean youngathlete. He failed to tell me on what special contingency hisdecision depended; he only alluded familiarly to an expectedtelegram, and I saw he was probably fond at no time of the troubleof explanations. His mother's absence was a sign that when it mightbe a question of gratifying him she had grown used to spare nopains, and I fancied her rummaging in some close storeroom, amongold preserve-pots, while the dull maid-servant held the candleawry. I don't know whether this same vision was in his own eyes; atall events it didn't prevent his saying suddenly, as he looked athis watch, that I must excuse him - he should have to go back tothe club. He would return in half an hour - or in less. He walkedaway and I sat there alone, conscious, on the dark dismantledsimplified scene, in the deep silence that rests on American townsduring the hot season - there was now and then a far cry or a plashin the water, and at intervals the tinkle of the bells of thehorse-cars on the long bridge, slow in the suffocating night - ofthe strange influence, half-sweet, half-sad, that abides in housesuninhabited or about to become so, in places muffled and bereaved,where the unheeded sofas and patient belittered tables seem (likethe disconcerted dogs, to whom everything is alike sinister) torecognise the eve of a journey.
After a while I heard the sound of voices, of steps,the rustle of dresses, and I looked round, supposing these thingsto denote the return of Mrs. Nettlepoint and her handmaiden withthe refection prepared for her son. What I saw however was twoother female forms, visitors apparently just admitted, and nowushered into the room. They were not announced - the servant turnedher back on them and rambled off to our hostess. They advanced in awavering tentative unintroduced way - partly, I could see, becausethe place was dark and partly because their visit was